Newest 787 goes on parade

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. – The first 787 Dreamliner assembled here waited Friday morning to roll out into the hot southern sunshine, “Made with pride in South Carolina” stenciled on its forward fuselage.

It’s a step that moves this new Boeing manufacturing site out of the shadow of Washington.

Boeing South Carolina, which already employs around 6,000 people, has until now built 787 rear fuselages and mid-fuselages, then shipped those massive sections by air to Everett for final assembly.

As of Friday, it can boast that it also assembles complete airplanes, one of just three elite widebody jet assembly sites in the world: Everett; Toulouse, France; and now North Charleston, S.C.

And unlike Everett, Boeing South Carolina does the entire sequence of plane-making.

“This is the only site in the world that can say we go from freezer all the way to flight,” said Matt Borland, director of 787 aft-fuselage assembly.

At the end of the line, Dreamliner No. 46, the first Boeing-designed commercial jet ever built outside Washington’s Puget Sound region, sat ready for its moment in the sun, smoke from a smoke machine to be used in the rollout ceremony already swirling around it.

Certainly, Washington remains the center of gravity of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. It boasts 83,000 Boeing employees, including all the commercial airplane engineers who design the jets. The Everett widebody jet plant – home to the 787 design team and the first 787 assembly line – alone has more than 33,000 workers.

Yet clearly Boeing South Carolina is now a significant, high-tech part of Boeing’s commercial jet operations, one focused entirely on making and assembling its newest jet made from carbon-fiber-reinforced composite plastic.

Jack Jones, vice president of Boeing South Carolina, marveled at the short timeline from knocking down trees in January 2010 to the rollout.

“From the time we went to dirt to the aircraft that’s going to roll out today – two-and-a-half years. That’s phenomenal,” Jones said Friday morning.

Marco Cavazzoni, general manager of the final assembly center, said construction of the building, at a cost of $750 million, provided jobs for 10,000 construction workers and came in seven months ahead of schedule.

The cavernous assembly bay, where four Air India 787s are currently under assembly, is a 480-foot-wide open space without interrupting columns, much wider than the one in Everett.

The assembly line is designed from scratch to incorporate changes that make it more efficient than the one in Everett.

All four of this year’s jets will go to Air India.